


California Dreamin'

by blithesea, womenseemwicked



Series: Drivin' After Midnight [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Collaboration, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Flirting, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, POV Billy Hargrove, POV Steve Harrington, Phone Calls & Telephones, Phone Sex, Roleplay Logs, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 00:37:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13558956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithesea/pseuds/blithesea, https://archiveofourown.org/users/womenseemwicked/pseuds/womenseemwicked
Summary: Steve disappears to California for his grandmother’s birthday. Billy overhears the number for his hotel, drinks a bit too much, and makes a stupid decision.





	California Dreamin'

**Author's Note:**

> Billy POV by ficsandfuckery ([women-seem-wicked](http://women-seem-wicked.tumblr.com/) on tumblr), Steve POV by blithesea ([bites-heal](https://bites-heal.tumblr.com/) on tumblr).

It’s been twelve days since Billy came onto his neighbors’ picket fence to thoughts of Steve Harrington’s pretty cock, and he hasn’t been able to get off to thoughts of anything else since. The shame of it is killing him and making him furiously horny all at once, but more than that, the fact that he hasn’t seen Harrington in a week now is driving him slowly _insane_.

The two days they’d had classes together after that night had been tense, painful even, and Billy had backed off of him a bit, all too aware of his confession in the car and the fact that any shit he gave Steve now would likely be understood for the flirtation it had always fucking been. It was the mother of all Catch-22’s. 

But when Billy had gotten to school that Tuesday to find Harrington had disappeared with only a word to his closest friends and a rumor passing around the school that his parents had wanted a _vacation,_ he’d come a little undone. Had stuck to a lunch table near the asshole’s freak friends until he heard that the Harringtons were in _his_ neck of the woods - Long Beach - just a couple hours north of what had once been his home. 

_That’s got to be a coincidence_ , his logical side thought dismissively, but the part of him that was horny and lonely and already way too deep told him otherwise.

It is mostly by accident that he finds out the number of the hotel where the Harringtons are staying. When Max receives a call because Steve has apparently just been to a place she’d suggested and loved it, Billy already has a pen in hand doing homework. So his hand slips a bit. 714… Extension 520… An accident. But that night, when Billy finishes off his seventh beer and glances over at the number scrawled in his hasty handwriting, it feels like _fate_.

“Max!!” he calls out from his bed and listens carefully, but it’s like he thought. He’s alone, for now. He grins slowly and pushes up off the mattress, taking the scrap of paper with the number in hand and eyeing it with that sort of proudly drunk feeling where he knows he’ll regret this in the morning but that he severely _doesn’t care_ right now.

Billy carefully crosses his room to the phone Neil had installed after the last time Max went AWOL, and dials the number with slightly fumbling hands. He doesn’t know what he’s planning to say, but when a female voice answers - _Linda Harrington, who’s speaking?_ \- he can’t help but puff himself up a bit and say in his smoothest (and most slurred) mom-killer voice, 

“Hey Linda, is Steve there?”

“Can I ask who this is?”

“You can _ask_ ,” Billy says, feeling superior.

The call is muffled and he hears the shape of voices on the other end but no actual words, and then in his ear - for the first time since Billy straddled him, naked and hard - is Steve’s voice. Deeper and a little more cracked from the phone lines, but unmistakably his.

\--

Thank fucking god for California, and for his Nana turning 70. California has been a soothing balm on Steve’s sex-tortured mind. The lazy, sunlit days and walks on the beach, the shopping trips, the pool, the margaritas. His nightmares have receded, faded out with all the sunlight. He’s been sleeping through whole nights. He’s no longer thinking of Billy and cursing himself every other minute. Thinking of Billy has been downsized to every ten minutes, at _most_. 

The weekend following their run-in had been confusing enough, questioning everything he’d thought he’d known about the asshole he’d thought he had pegged back in the beginning of September. But school had been absolute torture. Every time he had got a glance of Billy in the hallways or the parking lot he’d been reminded of what they did, and of what they hadn’t gotten to do. But _might_ have done later if Steve wasn’t such an idiot. 

Because that is a fact, Steve is the idiot in this situation. Somehow he’d managed to turn Billy from an open, smiling, laughing sex devil into a pissed off, prickly hornet, and he’s not quite sure how that happened, though not for lack of pondering. The events of that night have been replaying in his mind like a hellish merry-go-round ever since.

But California is golden. A beautiful distraction. Steve thinks he finally gets why Billy and Max seem to miss it so much. 

“Stevie, it’s for you. One of your friends from school, I think.” His mom breaks in to his reverie from inside the hotel room, stretching the phone cord out onto the patio as she waves him in after her.

 _Shit_. 

“Is it Dustin?” Steve had left him the number in case of emergencies, or in case he just feels like talking. Dustin had been all awe when Steve told him about the trip to California. The farthest he’s ever been away from Hawkins is the next little town, 15 miles over. 

“I don’t know, honey. It didn’t _sound_ like him, but I can never tell all your friends apart.” 

Steve resists the urge to roll his eyes, and takes the receiver. “Hello?” 

There is only silence on the other side, and Steve wonders if he’s been disconnected. Then he hears someone breathe, and his stomach flips with excitement, and hope. 

“Billy?” It’s a fucking shot in the dark, and he shouldn’t have said it like that. He knows he’s wrong. _Please don’t let it be Dustin now…_

\--

Billy almost drops the handset.

 _How the hell--?_ is his first thought. Quickly followed by: _Well there’s no point denying it now._

So in his most detached voice, Billy says into the tightly held phone,

“Yeah, it’s me.”

\--

Steve lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and tries to smile casually at his mother as he takes the phone and drags the cord as far as it goes, all the way to the bathroom. She raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t seem too bothered by it, returning quickly to the mystery novel in her one hand and the rosé in her other.

“Hey,” he says as he locks himself in, puts down the toilet lid and sits down. “What’s up?” _Good. Casual._ _Unaffected._

\--

Billy pulls the phone as far away from where it’s plugged into the wall as he can, and sits down on the edge of the bed, because standing is hard when you’re somewhere near drunk and Steve Harrington just asked you _“what’s up”_ like getting a call from you is a daily, expected occurrence.

“I uh,” Billy clears his throat. “Heard you were near my old stomping grounds…”

\--

“Oh.” Steve looks at himself in the mirror and is glad Billy can’t see him, because pool water and the wind off the Pacific have messed up his ‘do. He runs a hand through it, but it’s useless. 

“Yeah,” he says. “We came for my Grandmother’s birthday in Palm Springs. Now we’re in Long Beach.” 

\--

“Hm,” Billy sighs, playing with the coils of the phone cord. “Wish you woulda told me,” he says. “I coulda told you to go a few miles further south. Huntington’s got way better beaches. I used to go up there to surf.”

\--

Steve shrugs even though Billy can’t see him.

“Wasn’t really my decision. Mom wanted to come to Long Beach and, well, when she wants something…” he says. _Dad has to comply unless he wants to talk about his secretary Stacy, or his other secretary Beatrice, or the maid at that hotel…_ “I didn’t know you surfed.” 

Steve tries to imagine Billy as a surfer, and is surprised how easily the image forms. He’s seen surfers at the beach, toned and sun-kissed just like Billy. The thought of seeing Billy there, meeting him through pure chance as he jogs up with one of those huge boards, makes Steve smile.

\--

Billy can’t help smiling at how interested Steve sounds by the image of that.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I can do it much out here.” Billy leans back on the bed, one arm crooked to lean onto for support. “Surrounded by fields and cows. And now _you’re_ out there too,” he says bitterly, his words slurring together a little as he lays down and loosens up. “One more reason for me to say ‘the hell with it’ and just take the first bus out of here.”

\--

“We’re coming back soon,” Steve shrugs, but it is a nice thought. Billy and him, at the beach. No shivering, no cold. Maybe less bitching. Who knows what Billy would be like in his own element? 

Steve takes a deep breath. “It would be kinda nice if you’re still there, then. I guess.”

\--

Billy closes his eyes and hums a little laugh.

“What d’you miss me or somethin’, Harrington?” he asks.

\--

Steve decides he isn’t going to answer that. Like Billy’s ego needs that kind of boost. 

“Did you call me for any reason at all, or just to be a dick over long-distance?”

—

Billy frowns, his eyes flying open.

“What?” he mumbles, ‘cause this isn’t fair. Billy’s too drunk to fight. Too lonely. “No, I didn’t… I just…” He laughs a little miserably. “I chugged a couple of beers and I wanted to hear your voice, all right?”

Billy reaches over and picks the still burning cigarette from his ashtray and flicks off the long ash. He brings it to his lips and drags.

“‘m not being a dick, I jus’ miss one.”

\--

“You’re drunk,” Steve repeats, and feels like an idiot for not realising sooner. Sure, why would Billy call him if he was sober. 

\--

“I’m plesnantly buzzed,” Billy corrects indignantly. “Pleasantly. Shit. You know what I mean. Anyway, why do you care?”

\--

“I _don’t_ care,” Steve denies, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

“So you miss me.” He smiles at that, even if it took Billy a whole bottle of vodka to say it. “What do you miss most?” He thinks he can hazard a pretty good guess, but he wants to hear Billy say it. 

\--

Billy rolls his eyes.

“Don’t ask a question you don’t want the answer to, pretty boy,” he advises, taking another deep drag and holding it in his lungs til it hurts. “Anyway, it’s not fair if you don’t miss me back, is it?”

\--

“I didn’t say that,” Steve says, maybe a little too quickly. “So…”

\--

“Say it then,” Billy dares. He’s breathing shallowly. “Say it, Steve.”

\--

“Alright, asshole,” Steve sighs. “Maybe I miss you. A bit.” He draws his feet up under him and leans back against the toilet tank. “Now you.” 

\--

Billy grins and lays back again, stretching his free arm out wide against the bed.

“I miss your cock,” he says, because even several beers in _I miss you_ would be too much to handle. “And I wish I was in California right now, with you,” he adds, because the buzz is making him feel uncharacteristically romantic. The buzz and Steve’s soft voice.

\--

Steve’s cock bridles at the mention. He reaches down and gives himself a little squeeze. It’s not like Billy is here to see it, after all. 

“What would we do, if you were here now?”

\--

Billy groans.

“Well for one I’d take you to a _good_ beach. Mm you would look good in a speedo, Harrington.” He thinks for a moment and then chuckles quietly. “Oh, and I’d show you this beachside bar in Venice I always wanted to go to but could never afford.”

\--

“Beachside bar, that sounds nice.” He gives his dick another tug through his khakis and closes his eyes, imagining Billy. “Are we going swimming together?” 

\--

Billy mumbles a laugh.

“You any better at swimming than you are at defence, then sure thing, _sweetheart_ ,” he promises. “You don’t want to get caught in the undertow, at the beaches I’d take you to.”

He can hear something like shifting fabric through the phone and it reminds him of the fact that pressure’s been building softly between his legs since Steve started talking like this. Glancing down at himself, he chuckles lazily and reaches a hand down to give the slight tent in his jeans a little teasing pressure.

\--

“Eh, you admitting you’re no good at mouth-to-mouth? I’m shocked, Hargrove,” Steve smirks. He can picture Billy, if he tries really hard. His swim trunks may look a lot like his gym shorts, but who cares. He’s wet from the ocean, and smiling at Steve. It’s a nice thought. 

\--

Billy sighs a laugh. “You don’t have to drown yourself to get my mouth on you again, Harrington,” he grins. “Asking nicely would be easier.”

\--

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Steve replies wryly, but then he has to smile. He can hear Billy smiling through the line when he speaks. It’s odd to imagine, Steve never figured he’d be a happy drunk. So far he’s only seen him as an aggressive one. And, well. A sexy one, but that wasn’t even really drunk. Maybe. 

“So that’s how you spent your time here in California? The beach, 24/7?” Would the guys Billy slept with (in Steve’s mind there were hordes of them) all have been surfers, then?

\--

Billy shakes his head even though Steve can’t see it.

“Oh man, I wish,” he groans. “I lived inland growing up. Enough that going to the beach was only a couple times out of the year, and then only ‘cause my friends did it. I only _really_ got into surfing the last year or so before… Before we came here.” 

\--

“Right.” It feels a bit like Billy was going to say something else, but Steve isn’t sure, doesn’t want to pry. He’s starting to realize that he doesn’t really know shit-all about Billy Hargrove, except for the fact that he’s a bit of a dick who gives great head. Did they leave California because of the divorce, or something else? He remembers Max saying something along those lines, but listening to Billy, he has a feeling there was more to it. 

_Fuck it._ “Why did you guys leave? I mean,” he adds nonchalantly, trying to make the question sound less nosy, “I’ve only been here for a week, but it seems kinda great.” 

\--

Billy frowns deeply. “Look, just ‘cause I’m _drunk_ doesn’t mean you can just ask me shit like that, Harrington,” he says. “Don’t take advantage of me when I’m weak and lonely. It’s not… cool.”

\--

“Okay, forget I asked,” Steve says, a little peeved. He was starting to feel they were having a moment here, but, apparently not. Seems like Billy can ask him to _fuck_ him, but god forbid Steve wanting to know anything _personal_. 

“Keep to the more important topic of my cock. Got it.”

\--

“You’re so touchy, Steve,” Billy muses, and he doesn’t realize it but he’s not holding the phone quite as tight as he should so it’s slipping away from his mouth. “Like… I have to be sweet and nice all the time or you’ll chew me out.”

He turns over onto his chest and rearranges the phone to sit on the bed beneath him. Speaks into it directly.

“But I don’t like it when you chew me out,” he slurs. “I’d rather you just eat me out,” a little laugh bubbles up from his lips and he rolls his hips a little into the bed beneath him.

\--

Okay, Billy has managed to make his cheeks flush. Steve is quite glad that he isn’t there to see, and probably too drunk to notice. The thought of eating Billy’s… anything —Well. He has to think about that some more before he can give any qualified response.

“I don’t care if you’re ‘sweet and nice,’ dick-weed,” he says, a little fondly. “Just don’t be a fucking asshole. That’s enough.” 

\--

Billy groans and collapses back onto his back beside the phone, throwing his arms up in distress.

“But I can’t _not_ be an asshole, Harrington,” he whines. “That’s what I _am_.”

He sits back up and takes the phone with him.

“You might as well ask, I dunno, Tommy, not to be a brainless sycophant,” he rolls his eyes. “It’s just not in the cards.”

\--

Steve chuckles. “You can’t be that drunk, if you still remember how to say sycophant,” he remarks, cradling the receiver in the crook of his shoulder and going through his pockets. He wishes he had a cigarette, but his search comes up empty. 

\--

“Some people are just smart, Harrington,” Billy smirks, coiling the phone cord around his fingers. “I can say plenty of words when I’m drunk. In fact some might say that’s the _problem_ ,” he giggles.

\--

Steve smiles and shakes his head. Billy is being such an idiot. He wishes he was there with him now, to laugh at him in person. 

“Maybe I could find a way to shut you up, though…” he says, picking at the telephone cord. 

\--

Billy licks his lips and adjusts himself in his jeans with a slow smile as his voice goes low.

“Mm how would you do that, pretty boy?” he asks, closing his eyes and picturing himself with Steve in some fancy hotel room, with a bed at their disposal. He palms himself and spreads his legs a little.

\--

“Hm. Well, there was that thing you did, in the back of my car. I don’t know if you remember,” Steve says slowly, closing his eyes. He remembers it only too fucking well. “More of that?”

\--

Billy sighs a laugh and pushes his jeans open quickly.

“I did a lot of things in the back of your car, Harrington,” he purrs. “You’re gonna have to be more specfific. Mm scpecific.”

\--

Steve laughs softly. His parents are probably still out on the patio, and even if they have moved inside to the living room of their suite of rooms, they probably won’t hear a thing through the thick mahogany door between them. But it still feels weird to say this kind of thing out loud. 

“My dick in your mouth, all the way in,” he says quietly, almost breathing the words into the telephone receiver. “The way you let me… fuck your face. Ring any bells?”

\--

Billy lets his mouth fall open and groans. He can’t help it.

“Yeah, I remember that,” he slurs a little. “You were so hard for me,” he sighs appreciatively. “Are you hard now?” he asks, and reaches over to his vanity for the bottle of lube his dad would never look hard enough to recognize amongst the hair products. He’s uncoordinated, though, and sends several bottles toppling in his grab.

“Shit,” he hisses, but the bottles are beyond his reach, and he’s busy now, so he returns to his bed with the lube. _I’ll deal with you later, assholes._

\--

Steve adjusts himself in his khakis. He’ll need to take care of this before he goes back out there. “Yeah,” he says softly into the telephone. “You?”

\--

Billy pauses slicking his hand along his half-hard cock to hear Steve’s quiet voice through the phone and lets his head tip back a little.

“Mhmm,” he answers, returning his hand to tug slowly at his dick. “Since you started talking,” he admits. “Are you touching yourself?”

\--

The little he’s been palming his cock surely doesn’t count, Steve decides. Billy, though. Billy sounds like he’s got a hand on his naked dick already, his voice all low and silky, and, fuck. Steve needs to get with the program. 

He pops open the button on his khaki shorts and looks over his shoulder. His mom’s hand lotion is right there. That shit is probably worth more than the nightly rate for the hotel room, but Steve doesn’t care. She can always get more.

Holding the phone tight in the crook of his shoulder again, he squeezes out a dollop of cream and coats his fingers. Then he closes his hand around his cock, sighing at the contact. Fuck, that feels good. 

“Yeah,” he says softly to Billy in his ear. “Now I am. Are you… Did you take off your pants? Or…” 

\--

Billy can’t get over how sweet and virginal Steve sounds like this. Such a heady contrast to the slick sounds coming from his end of the line now too.

“Do you want me to?” he asks slyly. “Fuck myself on my fingers and pretend it’s you? Mmf.” 

He’s already laying down on his back and working himself desperately out from the denim before Steve has a chance to respond, because _god_ , having _anything_ in his ass sounds fucking good right about now.

\--

Steve bites his lip. He wants that, and he doesn’t want it -- he didn’t even know that is something Billy does. Fuck himself. On his fingers. He tries to imagine it, and can’t. Maybe one finger. That’s sort of like a dick? A really small one, but to him, even thinking of having a finger up there makes his cheeks burn. 

“Are you?” he asks, voice a little more hoarse. Fuck, did he lock the bathroom when he came in here? 

\--

“Mm, _fuck_ ,” Billy mutters, arching into the single digit as he presses into his hole. “Yeah,” he’s breathing heavy now. His head is swimming with alcohol and arousal. “Yeah I am. Fuck, Steve.”

Billy’s rhythm stutters and picks up as he slips in another finger, his cock too affected by drink to be as hard right now as he wants it.

But car tires hit the driveway outside just then, and Billy freezes at the sound of his dad’s truck pulling in. The car doors slam.

“ _Shhhit_ ,” he hisses, and immediately takes his hands off himself, his heart pounding in his chest.

\--

“Fuck, don’t tell me you’ve come already,” Steve hisses, because this is good, and hot, and the thought of Billy doing _that_ has been an unexpected highlight of the evening, but he’s not even nearly close now, he could go for a while, and Billy’s already finishing? Fuck! 

\--

“I have to go,” Billy mutters, holding the phone with his shoulder as he scrambles to pull his pants on with slippery fingers. “My old man--”

The front door opens and closes, and Billy’s so too drunk for this. Doesn’t know whether to hang up on Steve first or get his cock tucked safely away, because it’s unlikely he can do both before Neil will be barging in. _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_.

He drops the phone to the floor in his haste to do up his stubborn fly, and _just_ has it buttoned when his bedroom door is banged on twice.

Billy checks himself in the mirror, whining under his breath at the obvious bulge in his jeans and the slick of his left hand, and gets the door.

“Where the hell is your sister, Billy? I thought we’d talked about this.”

“She’s fine!” Billy says overenthusiastically. “I drove her to the arcade. She wanted to get out of here,” he shrugs with what he hopes is casual brotherly understanding. “I told her I would pick her up later.”

Neil frowns but seems to buy it. He glances at his watch.

“Well they close in five minutes, don’t they? You better get a move on,” he says.

Billy sighs and nods. He thinks he’s in the clear.

“Yes, sir,” he agrees, going to close the door again. But the movement catches Neil’s attention and suddenly his eyes are drawn to the wetness of Billy’s hand. The bulge in his jeans. The phone and the bottle of lube on his bed. _Oh no. Oh no no no no no._

Neil’s face goes stormy again, and this time it’s darker. He glances at Billy and in an instant pushes past him and into the room.

“Dad?” Billy asks, following helplessly. “Dad, I wasn’t-- Please…”

“Who is this?” Neil Hargrove asks, holding the phone just away from his face with distaste.

But the other end is dead.

Billy holds his breath, waiting for the slap to come. Wishing he was sober enough to get himself out of this. Wishing he was sober enough not to have made that stupid call in the first place. But Neil just puts the phone back in its cradle and thuds the whole thing back on the shelf by Billy’s door.

“If I find out that was one of your…” Neil doesn’t finish the sentence. Too disgusted by the concept. Instead, he turns his gaze on Billy, hard. “There will be a _reckoning_ , William. D’you hear me?” He steps out the door and moves to slam it behind him, but stops just as Billy shudders preemptively. “And go find your goddamn sister.”

The door slams for real and Billy swallows hard around the lump in his throat. Glances around him for something to wipe his hands off on and a jacket to tie around his waist.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone is interested, there are mood-board things for each of the fics in this series up on Theo’s tumblr [here](http://women-seem-wicked.tumblr.com/post/170473067406/california-dreamin/), great for reblogging and sharing with your friends ;)


End file.
